Sunday, May 11, 2014

Apologetics Without Apology: A Response To My Critics

It seems that my critics are at it yet again. My Expert Textpert cronies and I have been accused of so many misdeeds lately that one wonders when we ever find time to blog at all. No doubt it will soon be "revealed" that we ate the last cookie, orchestrated Benghazi, and never saw The Godfather Part 2. I should note that I have never visited the blogs of my attackers to criticize them; I don't leave comments or engage in their petty "debate" challenges. Yet they feel compelled to bring their nonsense here repeatedly, no doubt to the delight of their comrades who would revel in the dissolution of Expert Textperts. Still, while their opinions mean little to me, I find myself fascinated by them and I'd like to respond to a few comments on a recent post I wrote to give an insight into their thinking. The reader can ultimately decide who is correct.

Pictured: My last selfie

Warren Straw recently left the comment, "Hi there Dear, are you actually visiting this website regularly, if so then you will without doubt obtain pleasant experience. Also visit my weblog"(link removed; I see no value sending him traffic).

I am astonished that appropriately-named Mr. Straw felt the need to bring up the same tendentious arguments that have been repeatedly debunked for years now, including the old "without doubt" canard. Whatever his "pleasant experience" is I'm disappointed that he apparently lacks the insight to realize that his invitations are irrelevant to faithful Textperts. "Visit my weblog" may fly the among the "progressive" crowd, but it's got little to do with us.

Leslie Lim added, "There is alot of talk on the Internet with people looking for Legitimate home based jobs - here is a list - while we cannot endorse them we can tell you they are real companies that hire people to work from home. You can present products to these folks and be on your way. As we're chatting about this, I see that we have a common issue here. My homepage: jobs"

My critics love to insinuate that I am apparently jobless and have nothing better to do with my time--projection, perhaps?--but Ms. Lim has touched on something important here. Imagine if I had offered at-home employment as a defense of my blogging to one of Lim's cadre. Can you imagine the firestorm that would have ensued? The tactic is clear: She attacks, I defend, and this is called "balance." It puzzles me that those who are the most vocal about pushing their "work from home" agenda are also utterly unwilling to handle it themselves. I mentioned this to Leslie several times and am still waiting for her to respond.

PC hypocrisy? You decide.

Cindy completed the pile-on, "I am happy to find your distinguished way of writing the post. Now you make it easy for me to understand and implement the concept. Thank you for the post"

At first glance this seems reasonable, but a closer look reveals the typical prevarication of exactly the sort I am charged with by Cindy's ilk. A detailed critique of her comment would be tedious, lengthy, and unproductive, so instead let me focus on her her claim that it is "easy" to understand certain concepts. Of course, she is free to believe whatever she wants but some of us prefer concepts that are difficult to understand. Indeed, the very purpose of blogging is to explore such things. For individuals like Cindy who prefer the easy road I'd recommend any number of content-lite platforms like Twitter, which has already embraced the path she advocates. The rest of us are perfectly comfortable with complexity.

I want to conclude by restating that the opinions of my critics are not relevant in the least. Their caricatures of me would surprise my many friends and acquaintances, who seem perfectly happy with my beliefs and my writing. You'll notice that not one of my enemies provided any evidence to support their "arguments" against me, yet their defensiveness is evident, so who truly has the "persecution complex"? In fact, they're actually doing a great service, because in the matter of Expert Textperts I am firmly convinced that there is no middle ground. While attacking me they simply reinforce what we've been taught about blogging in the last days. I have charity in my hearts for them, but I will not stand by idly while my blog is disparaged by the wolves in sheeps clothing. If that makes me a "bully," so be it.

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Inspired by late-night discussions in college and all the times we thought, "Man, I should write about this somewhere," a blog on life, love, history, philosophy, culture, religion and funny image captions.